Spell Penetration wtf?

[ShiniKaze]

My words when i saw my friend gemming this in his hunter. i told him not to..but he doesnt believe me...he says he saw on some top notch hunters in arena. give me one sound arguement to convince him otherwise please.

[FireBorne]

For pve hell no, for pvp why not.

[Tenzz]

Nothing wrong with a bit of Spell Pen to prevent resists on traps and stuff.

[Yizren]

if it is in a PVE situation, he is the retard

in a PVP situation, U are the retard and need to stop telling others how to play there class, when u clearly are fucking retarded with it

[riflemancho]

This is a troll atempt i think

[Iosif]

Spell Pen for anything has a lesser use then other stats... Sure Spell Pen might help a little more per unit for Trap Resists then say +hit but +hit is necessary for other things and by the time you get your +hit to a acceptable level you should see vary few trap resists.

If he is overly concerned about resists in PvP then he should be gemming a little extra Hit rather then Spell Pen, he will yield a greater net effect.

[Yizren]

Spell Pen for anything has a lesser use then other stats... Sure Spell Pen might help a little more per unit for Trap Resists then say +hit but +hit is necessary for other things and by the time you get your +hit to a acceptable level you should see vary few trap resists.

If he is overly concerned about resists in PvP then he should be gemming a little extra Hit rather then Spell Pen, he will yield a greater net effect.

just stop, u dont know what ur talking about

[Kimbald]

If I'm not mistaken, spell penetration does not effect traps at this stage.
It should, but it doesn't.
The thing with traps is that they work on spell hit, not our normal ranged hit. This is of course the 'same' hit, but you simply need more for spells...
The result is that when you're hitcapped for ranged, you're still too low for spells and hence too low for your traps.
Spell penetration does not alter that, only more hit does, combined with the talents in the Survival tree.

A shame, but our fire damage from our traps isn't effected by spell penetration either, and this really is a big mistake (unless it's already fixed, since it reads 'bug' or 'oops overlooked' to me

Than why take spell penetration as a hunter?
If this is a real question, and not some troll attempt that lacks being funny, here goes...

Explosive shot (or arcane shot, Black Arrow,... for example) is magical damage.
As a SV hunter I shoot ES in pvp most of all my abilities, since it's my main shot on the move (my main shot period, of course).

Mark of the wild, the druid buff, gives you magical resistance, so does the paladin aura against fire, etc.
The idea of spell penetration in pvp is to overcome that druid buff at least.
Else you will see a lot of partial resists (where some of the damage is lowered) or even total resists (since it's always a roll for full resist as well).
Spell penetration lowers that damage being resisted, and gives you better odds for that roll against a full resist.

75 spell penetration was the magic number, since it counters that druid buff.
Getting to the 130 penetration you need for the pally fire aura, is overkill since it will cost you a lot, and it's very situational (not all pallies use it of course, only some do if they see a SV hunter nuking)
With the new gems, you can either take 3 blue gems, or 2 blue gems and the cloak enchant. This will get you past that. There are also yellow gems that have crit and 13 spell penetration for example. So you have some options.

[ShiniKaze]

If I'm not mistaken, spell penetration does not effect traps at this stage.
It should, but it doesn't.
The thing with traps is that they work on spell hit, not our normal ranged hit. This is of course the 'same' hit, but you simply need more for spells...
The result is that when you're hitcapped for ranged, you're still too low for spells and hence too low for your traps.
Spell penetration does not alter that, only more hit does, combined with the talents in the Survival tree.

A shame, but our fire damage from our traps isn't effected by spell penetration either, and this really is a big mistake (unless it's already fixed, since it reads 'bug' or 'oops overlooked' to me

Than why take spell penetration as a hunter?
If this is a real question, and not some troll attempt that lacks being funny, here goes...

Explosive shot (or arcane shot, Black Arrow,... for example) is magical damage.
As a SV hunter I shoot ES in pvp most of all my abilities, since it's my main shot on the move (my main shot period, of course).

Mark of the wild, the druid buff, gives you magical resistance, so does the paladin aura against fire, etc.
The idea of spell penetration in pvp is to overcome that druid buff at least.
Else you will see a lot of partial resists (where some of the damage is lowered) or even total resists (since it's always a roll for full resist as well).
Spell penetration lowers that damage being resisted, and gives you better odds for that roll against a full resist.

75 spell penetration was the magic number, since it counters that druid buff.
Getting to the 130 penetration you need for the pally fire aura, is overkill since it will cost you a lot, and it's very situational (not all pallies use it of course, only some do if they see a SV hunter nuking)
With the new gems, you can either take 3 blue gems, or 2 blue gems and the cloak enchant. This will get you past that. There are also yellow gems that have crit and 13 spell penetration for example. So you have some options.

Thank you for the replies.

I apologise if this looked like a troll attempt and yes i agree that i was the retard. i could only type so much of i wanted to say when class starts in 2 mins.

So, my more proper question was : 1) is Spell pen. a stat worth picking in Hunters(and if yes,what situation?) this was answered by Kimbald

2) Does Spell pen. also affect survival shot as well?

thnx in advance.

[Kimbald]

what do you mean by 'survival shot'?

Do you mean all shots by a survival hunter?
Do you mean Explosive shot (the Survival signature shot, 51 talent)?
Do you mean something I don't know?

If you mean all shots, than: no, only those with magic damage (no steady, no auto shot)
If you mean explosive shot: yes, as already mentioned.

I think the list of shots with magical damage is:

Serpent sting (nature)
Black Arrow (shadow)
Arcane shot (arcane)
Explosive shot (fire)
Chimera shot if with serpent sting (nature)

trap damage is not counted for spell penetration I believe, but it should...

One last thing, and rather important:

Raid bosses do NOT resist spells in this mechanic.
They either are completely IMMUNE, and no ammount of spell penetration will change that at all.
Or they have zero resistance, making spell penetration useless since it takes away spell resistance (that is all it does, nothing more, point for a point).

This means spell penetration is useless for hunters in pve, as it is for casters.
Only a pvp issue.

[ShiniKaze]

Whoops, Yes i did mean expolsive shot.
btw
Thnx for the info. Thats what i needed to know.

[hellboyy]

so should marksmen for pvp also be going for 75 to spell pen? marks has SrS+Chimera + wild quiver as nature, and Arcane shot?

[Kimbald]

I think most pvp MM would say 'yes' to that Hellboyy.
But since I have always been SV, ever since it was a very weak specc before TBC even, I wouldn't be the expert on that.

Those damages are magic indeed, so by the same logic MM could use spell penetration indeed.

The opposite is true as well:
if another hunter is nuking you, and he's MM... use aspect of the wild for nature resist, just like on an elemental shaman.
At least if you're trying to run etc.

[Balduvian]

so should marksmen for pvp also be going for 75 to spell pen? marks has SrS+Chimera + wild quiver as nature, and Arcane shot?

Yes. It's just as important to get 75 Spell Pen as MM then as Survival in PvP.
BM, on the other hand, it's not really worth it just for Arcane Shot.